Patriots fans should not be complaining about officiatingExcept that it was not a fumble on the day it occurred. Rules are added, changed and repealed with some frequency, so Shank's argument can be used selectively, as he did here. When that fumble happened, I did indeed think that it was a fumble and like the occasional moron that I am, I went right to bed after that play, thinking that it was a fumble. The next morning I read all about it and I was pleasantly stunned at a) what happened and b) that the 'Tuck Rule' was in place, as I didn't recall that particular subtlety of the NFL rulebook at the time.
Be better, Patriot fans. All this crying about officiating is embarrassing.
Suck it up. The officials stunk in Sunday’s 23-16 loss to the Chiefs, but we have to stop feeling sorry for ourselves. Folks around the nation are celebrating New England’s late-season woes, and we only make matters worse by blaming it on the officials.
Everybody knows that the entire Patriots dynasty was built on a football lie. Remember the Tuck Rule? Of course you do. The bad rule (which nobody knew about before Jan. 19, 2002) was correctly enforced on that snowy night in Foxborough and it turned Tom Brady’s fumble into an incomplete pass, giving birth to 18 years of Do Your Job, No Days Off, and They Hate Us ’Cause They Ain’t Us. The rule was so bad that it was eventually repealed. Brady’s fumble today would be what it should haven (sic) been that night: a fumble.
He goes on from there to 'remind' all of us at how lucky the Patriots have been since that game. While it's hard to argue against that notion in general, I don't agree with Shank that it tips oh so heavily in the Patriots favor.
That said, I'd recommend reading the rest of the column. It's a decent read, because you can see Shank is energized in this column, as he usually is when he gets a chance to write a column after a Patriots loss.
Dan is a fraud
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